Seve Ballesteros pro golfer with the artful bunker shot, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Seve Ballesteros pro golfer with the artful bunker shot, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

I mean it's fair to say that the 2012 European fight back in the Ryder Cup was inspired by Seve. We will miss Seve since he's not around and surely misses tenacity in the way he played the game in a certain flair for the game of golf and the certain lessons that we can pick up, we can learn from that. The one I really like is the way he played bunker shots. There's a story that he would grew up playing golf on the beach in Spain with just a three and he learns how every shot was done. His experimentation, I'd like you to take you onboard of the one lesson that Seve can leave us. So when he go to the driving range, he go to the practice ground. Just spend a few minutes in the bunker each time, just playing different shots experimenting a little bit. We can have a basic understanding of bunker technique which would be open in the club face opening the feet of down the left side, gripping the golf club nice and loosen the hands and a good pick up on the backswing. That are things that Seve did really nicely.

Then he experimented with little bit. One thing that we don’t want to see is the hands stopping at the impact position but likewise we don’t want to see the hands ripping over and rotating through too much. And this is the one time in a bunker where you might be allowed to have a chicken wing. The chicken wing is what we would describe is where the left elbow, lift up away from the body.

Generally, we don’t want that elbow away from the body. It's all we want to end because that would encourage your rotation particularly for your long game. But if you watch Seve play a lot of his high soft landing bunk shots that are just checked up nicely next to the flag. He's always played with a high left elbow, just a little bit of a chicken wing coming through the ball. If I can just hit one here you will see in the follow through have a left elbow stays quite high and it pulls in. Not the technique that would normally accustomed to using because it doesn’t generate the power or the accuracy we want. But it just shows how experimenting in bunker shots can actually give you a nice little feeling of, "Okay, so that keeps the club face open a little bit more that doesn’t let the club decelerate too much but it also doesn’t whip the club head over and hit the ball too far."

So take a little lesson out of Seve's book. Don't be afraid to experiment. Spend plenty of time in the sand, plenty of time practicing the things you're not very good at until they become your absolute strengths. Seve was certainly a master of the short game. You can take a lesson from that book.

 2012-12-03

I mean it's fair to say that the 2012 European fight back in the Ryder Cup was inspired by Seve. We will miss Seve since he's not around and surely misses tenacity in the way he played the game in a certain flair for the game of golf and the certain lessons that we can pick up, we can learn from that. The one I really like is the way he played bunker shots. There's a story that he would grew up playing golf on the beach in Spain with just a three and he learns how every shot was done. His experimentation, I'd like you to take you onboard of the one lesson that Seve can leave us. So when he go to the driving range, he go to the practice ground. Just spend a few minutes in the bunker each time, just playing different shots experimenting a little bit. We can have a basic understanding of bunker technique which would be open in the club face opening the feet of down the left side, gripping the golf club nice and loosen the hands and a good pick up on the backswing. That are things that Seve did really nicely.

Then he experimented with little bit. One thing that we don’t want to see is the hands stopping at the impact position but likewise we don’t want to see the hands ripping over and rotating through too much. And this is the one time in a bunker where you might be allowed to have a chicken wing. The chicken wing is what we would describe is where the left elbow, lift up away from the body.

Generally, we don’t want that elbow away from the body. It's all we want to end because that would encourage your rotation particularly for your long game. But if you watch Seve play a lot of his high soft landing bunk shots that are just checked up nicely next to the flag. He's always played with a high left elbow, just a little bit of a chicken wing coming through the ball. If I can just hit one here you will see in the follow through have a left elbow stays quite high and it pulls in. Not the technique that would normally accustomed to using because it doesn’t generate the power or the accuracy we want. But it just shows how experimenting in bunker shots can actually give you a nice little feeling of, “Okay, so that keeps the club face open a little bit more that doesn’t let the club decelerate too much but it also doesn’t whip the club head over and hit the ball too far.”

So take a little lesson out of Seve's book. Don't be afraid to experiment. Spend plenty of time in the sand, plenty of time practicing the things you're not very good at until they become your absolute strengths. Seve was certainly a master of the short game. You can take a lesson from that book.